Middle school schedules still in flux, Kingston district superintendent says (video)

KINGSTON, N.Y. -- Kingston school officials continue to nail down details of the plan to restructure the Kingston school district in 2013-14 and Superintendent Paul Padalino said the development of the middle school schedules is not yet complete.

Padalino hoped to finalize middle school schedules, which will articulate many of the benefits of his plan, by Feb. 1, but the superintendent said the administration is a couple of weeks behind on that task.

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"That's the hard work we're doing now is looking at the schedules and looking at the staffing that goes with them," Padalino told the school board Wednesday. "We're working through that. We'll be reviewing that with our principals. Hopefully within the next couple weeks, we'll have that completely done."

In a recent interview, Padalino said the middle school schedules that have not yet been finalized are similar to the versions presented to the Board of Education during the reconfiguration dialogue last summer. He described those versions as "a good skeleton."

"We were able to put the flesh on those bones over the last six months," Padalino said, adding that the "spirit and philosophy" of the original plans have remained the same.

When he pitched the reconfiguration plan, Padalino said a significant benefit of consolidation is no longer needing professionals to travel between as many buildings, leading to better services in each school, greater flexibility in schedules and new programs at the middle schools.

"We are going to be able to enhance our educational program. We're going to be able to provide remediation and enrichment for students during the school day," the superintendent said. "We are going to be able to provide more services for our students at every one of the buildings -- not just the merged buildings, at all of our buildings."

The idea to move fifth-graders out of elementary schools has been controversial among district parents who fear students as young as 10 being exposed to eighth-graders, but Padalino has argued that those pupils will get a better academic experience by exposing them to a greater array of middle school programs than elementary schools offer.

One of Padalino's proposals was to create eight-week "mini courses" for middle school students in foreign languages, advanced art, and family and consumer sciences. Comparing the schedule to a Rubix cube, Padalino said administrators have been trying to figure out the exact number and length of the mini courses and how they fit in with teachers' schedules.

The superintendent said once schedules are finalized, there will be associated staff reductions. He said he plans to break the news to district faculty himself before publicly releasing the details.

Padalino also told the school board that transportation planning has been completed, and activities to smooth the transition for students moving to new buildings continue, with fourth-graders from each elementary school visiting middle schools this month.